pre- projet de colloque international

articulating such a theory at the interface between the analysis of perceived atmosphere .... "atmosphere makers" (artists, film-makers, musicians, designers, etc.) ...
575KB taille 2 téléchargements 347 vues
"Creating an Atmosphere" The topic of architectural and urban atmosphere has been the focus of new interest for more than 10 years, responding to increasingly widespread concern all over the world. Before the 1990s "engineering atmospheres" was an established discipline, solidly rooted in physics and taught on all building and architectural courses. But the further science and technology advanced the more acute certain practical problems became in the design of built space, the management of the urban environment, and everyday usage and perception of towns and cities. In response there has been a gradual increase in the use of more qualitative techniques, drawing on a range of criteria, of sense-related approaches, and a growing interest in “good design and management practice”. Such concerns obviously coincide with the need for sustainable development. But for the time being our knowledge falls short of these new expectations. Contemporary architects, planners and designers must cope with segmented skills, a battery of regulations and building techniques, some relating to sound, others to light, others still to heating and air-conditioning. None of them share the same equations, physical scales nor perceptible values, let alone the same technology (apart from insulation that can be used for sound and heat-proofing). From a scientific or technical point of view the term "atmosphere", in the singular, is meaningless and apart from a few exceptions designers restrict themselves to applying the prevailing standards, despite the fact that before it is even finished any enclosure is already inhabited by a particular atmosphere. Furthermore, although designers may apply a whole series of standards, anticipating usage, to achieve a certain level of comfort, the end result falls sadly short of the sense of place that we are all able to perceive as a unique, over-arching atmosphere or climate. At the intersection between physical data, perception, feelings and cultural make-up, our experience of atmosphere is a singular one. To progress in our understanding of how we experience atmosphere and to find integrating tools that assist the design of architectural and urban projects, studies and experiments have been carried out since 1990. Examples include efforts to build models integrating a range of criteria, research into intermodal perception, exploration of the anthropology of the senses, interdisciplinary methods for analysing in situ perception and the development of a new aesthetic of atmosphere, as well as the outline of some stimulating theories in the dramatic arts. All this work, that has been developed or used in architecture, urban anthropology, civil and environmental engineering but also contemporary art, is underpinned by reflective standpoints and occasionally fully developed, but all too often fragmentary or intermittent methodological choices that are not always explicit but are nevertheless all components of a general theory of situational atmosphere. At the core of its interdisciplinary programme our Architectural and Urban Atmospheres research laboratory has devoted particular attention to developing and articulating such a theory at the interface between the analysis of perceived atmosphere and the practice of project design. In short, substantial blocks of knowledge have already been brought together. At the crossroads between physical and human science we are beginning to have a better idea of how to analyse a situational atmosphere, break down its components, identify the most obvious dimensions and get an approximation of those most difficult to apprehend, such as what constitutes the essence of perceived atmosphere. It is undoubtedly both desirable and necessary to extend this understanding a great deal further, particularly with respect to issues such as interaction between different types of sensory perception, the role of emotions, scope for crossover between disciplines, and which models are really applicable. But the issue that has been the least explored concerns generating atmospheres. A huge stock of know-how is exercised every day in the field of architectural and planning intuition, as it is in contemporary art, including street art, the media and advertising design. Though reluctant to hand out their recipes or little aware of the latent thought process that accompanies their "doing", such practitioners and artists rarely express the reflective substance of their productions. More radically speaking, those who know how to create an atmosphere are at pains to reveal the secrets of its composition, whereas those who know how to analyse an atmosphere rationally, fail to grasp the unifying substance that holds it together. It is equally astonishing that this mass of learning and practice has never been subjected to horizontal confrontation, nor shared with international players. This has caused an extraordinary loss of experience, holding back the current boom in sensitive, intelligent, sustainable architecture. It is increasingly urgent that we set up a transdisciplinary network bringing together those involved in the understanding and practice of such work who are concerned by these issues. Our international symposium will be the first act of the “International Atmosphere(s) Network”.

Symposium Organisation Symposium leader : J-F Augoyard ( DR CNRS) Network leader : J-P Thibaud ( DR CNRS)

Four goals 1) To create an international network on architectural and urban atmospheres. 2) To take stock of multidisciplinary work addressing the question of the synthesis of atmospheres over the last 15 years.

3) To identify scope for transferring knowledge between research, and practitioners designing and managing urban

spaces. Such transfers facilitate the emergence of preventive intelligence with regard to the comfort and quality of atmosphere, and consequently contribute to sustainable architecture.

4) To sound out potential international interest in this topic and initiate a programme of coordinated work. Current Grants and Collaborations. (november 2007) Ministère de la Culture (BRAUP, MRT), CNRS, Ville de Grenoble, Ministère de l’Equipement (PUCA), RATP.

Organisation The three-day symposium will be held in Grenoble. (with simultaneous translation : French/English.) - The first day (10 September 2008) will consist of an in situ workshop, involving observation in groups of urban atmospheres. This collective work, carried out on foot, will be punctuated by exchanges to help future network members to get acquainted. - The following two days will be divided into four half-days, consisting of an introductory conference and a two-hour round table. In the evenings we shall organise other sessions exploring urban atmospheres. - Written papers will be available at the time of the symposium. - An international, multidisciplinary bibliographic database is being compiled and will be put online.

Target audience In line with the symposium's priorities, we are expecting three types of participant: future members of the international network, researchers and practitioners (architects, planners, urban and transit authorities, creators, environmental designers) directly concerned by the symposium, a wider public interested in this new approach to the urban environment.

Speakers 1) Given the scope of our multidisciplinary opening, we could not immediately issue a call for papers. In a preliminary phase (2006-7) a comprehensive organisation committee was set up, including representatives of some 60 countries interested in the topic. The task of the network's "first circle" is to identify interested participants and potential speakers.

2) The novelty of the network, its exploratory nature and the difficulty of determining here and now the skills really available mean that the sessions of the first symposium will be plenary. As a result only about 30 papers will be presented. But there will be more time for debate, enabling participants to get to know each other, and the first symposium will be followed by other international gatherings and annual seminars.

Call for papers and posters Form. No longer than 15 minutes, the form and content of papers is open. They may offer a glimpse of theoretical work, experiments with new design methods or artistic creations, but all should seek to enhance and illustrate the corpus of questions raised by the symposium. A poster and DVD exhibition will also be organised.

Submission (papers, posters, DVD) A declaration of intention, of no more than one page (equivalent to 500 words in 12-point Times New Roman font under MS-Word), not counting illustrations, outlining the talk you plan to give (in French or English). Please file by email. Deadline for submissions: 15 January 2008

Admission Deadline for announcing selected summaries to speakers: 30 February 2008 Deadline for papers (no more than 20,000 signs including spaces): 30 May 2008

Guidelines Three key concerns should form the framework for papers. ->What makes an atmosphere? The first topic aims to determine the position of specialized fields of science and technology in relation to progress in synthesizing atmosphere. Has any progress been made towards answering the question: "What is an atmosphere?" Is it possible, in a research context, to move from an essentialist position to a posture that questions the conditions under which an atmosphere can exist? What can be said about the manner in which urban and architectural atmospheres are habitually experienced. Alongside fast developing neurophysiologic understanding, which is, for instance, revisiting notions such as synaesthesia, empathy and spatial orientation to good effect, the phenomenological, aesthetic and sociological dimensions of users and occupiers require new atmosphere-related approaches. -> How is an atmosphere created? The second topic seeks to draw on and confront the practical lessons learnt from the main categories of "atmosphere makers" (artists, film-makers, musicians, designers, etc.). On the one hand we should be able to show that it is possible to pass on the lessons learnt from these disciplines, over and above straightforward transmission of professional mastery within a given trade. There is no replacement for an account – with illustrations in so far as possible – of artistic or architectural work that has changed the atmosphere of a place and encouraged certain affective tonalities. The repository of typologies, covering situations that have been described and qualified, is a basic, upgradable tool of use to the network that will follow the symposium. On the other hand, whereas there is no shortage of urban artists who include their public in the creative process, it is increasingly unacceptable that the design of our durable environment and public spaces (light, sound, gardens, landscape) that affect the lives of thousands of city dwellers, should remain an arbitrary, artistic gesture. Surely over and above simple expressions of pleasure ("It's nice like that"), projects that change the atmosphere of urban spaces demand a genuine effort to explain aesthetic choices in a democratic fashion, with scope for dialogue between artists, citizens and politicians. -> How does one make an atmosphere in an architectural or town planning project? Returning to the processes involved in producing built, developed space, the third topic aims to determine whether there are other ways of achieving the standards of comfort demanded by current regulations, anticipating the perceptible qualities or even integrating atmosphere-related considerations at the start of design work, or even at the project owner's pilot stage. An initial approach would inevitably be historical and geographical. Before the boom in applied physics, drawing on tradition and custom, people already knew how to create an atmosphere, which emerged from a negotiation, rooted in the existing culture, between the various "atmosphere factors", much as we may distinguish them now. What can we learn from the past about controlling atmosphere? Might we not learn a great deal from the experience of local or pre-industrial builders too? A second approach would be to ask whether designers unknowingly use practical knowledge. Architects, even when subject to the pressures of productivity, in fact synthesize atmosphere in their first sketch. Form undoubtedly conditions atmosphere but is never entirely separate from it. Valuable lessons may be learnt from prestige but also ordinary architecture, often a treasure trove of atmospheric invention. The third approach would be more forward-looking, focusing on design and decision aids. What promise do existing synthesis tools hold for unified control of atmosphere? What price is to be paid for this holistic approach and how far may it go? Striving towards a theoretical optimum, to what extent can these ideas be applied under the economic, cultural and social conditions specific to the project location? Comité scientifique actuel : Liliana Bazzanella (Torino), Alain Berthoz (Collège de France), Gernöt Böhme (Darmstadt et Kyoto), José Luis Caivano (Buenos Aires), Pilar Chias, (Madrid), José Antonio Corraliza (Madrid), Cristina Duarte, (Rio de Janeiro), Jean Davallon (Avignon), Albert Dupagne (Liège), Catharina Dyrssen (Götteborg), Françoise Choay (Paris), Pedro GarciaSanchez(Caracas), Io Kaminagai (Japan & Paris), Helmi Jârviluoma (Turku), J.P. Peneau (Nantes), François Penz (Cambridge, UK), Jean Stern (Genêve), Anne Verdez-Moudon (Seattle), Yves Winkin (Bruxelles, Lyon), Mirko Zardini (CCA Montreal).